International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

Philip Agee, an agent of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), resigned from the organization and went on to become a leading conscientious objector to its policies of repression that defended imperialism, corrupt military regimes and oligarchs, and predatory capitalism, for nearly 40 years from 1969 to his death in 2008. He was born on July 19, 1935 in Tampa, Florida, the son of a businessman who provided laundry services to the US military. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame with honors. In 1957, Agee enlisted in the CIA, and became a case officer in Ecuador, Uruguay, and Mexico before resigning in dissent to the policies of torture, assassination, and repression against workers, peasants, and the poor who had organized guerilla resistance against dictatorships in Latin America. Agee was especially appalled by an institutionalized policy of CIA torture to obtain information from suspected dissidents and efforts to support authoritarian governments in brutally crushing popular insurrections in Latin America ( Agee 1975 ). Agee's departure from the CIA and subsequent efforts to reveal its secret operations came about at a time when the US government had supported military dictatorships and authoritarian regimes that had engaged in campaigns to eradicate all left, and even liberal democratic sources of opposition in Central America and South America. Following his ... log in or subscribe to read full text